


Two Cruel Weeks

by eatyourwords



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatyourwords/pseuds/eatyourwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's also most likely not fair to be told your almost boyfriend is dying via a printed out Wikipedia article and a "I think it's for the best we stop seeing each other," scratched onto the end of it, but there weren't any good or fair options here, really.</i><br/><br/>Louis is sick, and it complicates matters a bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Cruel Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> Ironically enough, terminal illness fics are one of my least favorite kinds to read, but somehow this came out. 
> 
> Erm, enjoy?

It's not fair when life plans get cut short.

It's not fair to be told your days are numbered at 23.

It's especially not fair when you've only just found a boy that makes you want to live forever if only for the chance to make him laugh one more time.

It's also probably not fair to be told your almost-boyfriend is dying via a printed out Wikipedia article and a _I think it's for the best we stop seeing each other_ scratched onto the end of it, but there weren't any good or fair options here, so Louis makes do and holds his breath. From his post, he watches the unsuspecting boy enter the cafe, and Louis tries not to smile when the boy who could've-might've-maybe been his is whistling the song Louis had been raving about two days prior.

Harry gets two cups, one for Louis and one for himself, and Louis breath catches as he realizes the depth of masochism in this exercise. Harry whistles easily, and the two cup order rests comfortably in his palms. They're a habit already. Louis's gut wrenches at the thought, wishing not for the first time since The News that he'd met Harry just two weeks later, that he would have reasoning to fend off Harry's advances, that he wouldn't have this particular name on his list of People To Be Told.

Harry's eyebrows draw together in confusion when he spots the neatly folded paper. It rests directly in front of where he normally sits and across from where Louis should already be.

Louis sincerely hopes Harry wasn't as stupid to fall in love with a sick boy in their tiny two weeks.

Across the cafe, Harry sets down the two paper cups with careful grace and sweeps his eyes over the room curiously, missing Louis's form tucked artfully behind bookshelves in the opposite corner of the room, before bending to pick up the paper left for him.

It has his name on it, Louis knows, scrawled in dark blue ink, and Harry tosses the paper back on the table, as if it's on fire or filled with poison, but he plops down after it all the same. A weary hand reaches up to scrub his face like maybe he can guess the last sentence on the paper, but he sets his shoulders determinedly. Louis tries to tamp down the affection welling up for the boy. It makes it hurt even more as he begins imagining the assurances running through Harry's head: Maybe Louis got here early but was called into work unexpectedly, so he scrawled out a message instead. Maybe he called it in knowing Harry would get there before him to let him know he's running late. Maybe, Louis's heart sinks, maybe this is Louis's way of officially asking Harry out.

He briefly indulges himself in a world where that could be the reality of the encounter, but no, Louis knows the handwriting is too neat for a rushed hand, too like himself to be written by anyone else, and Louis is too handsy and unclever for written word when he could be tracing the edges of Harry's skin as he finally--

Residue of the thought rinses away with a furrow of Harry's eyebrows just as the rustle of paper carries to where Louis is hidden.

Mint green eyes traverse the same Wikipedia article Louis found upon his return from the doctor's. His face betrays all the confusion Louis experienced himself, like this must be some big practical joke. There was no way this fatal disease Louis had never even heard of would just crop up two weeks after he'd met the guy Louis had, in the deep recesses of his mind, acknowledged that he could be It, the big and lovely It, for him.

But Harry doesn't have that context in his mind as he reads over the printed words. He can't hear the echo of the doctor's voice calmly informing him that the disease had been waiting around for much longer than two weeks. He doesn't feel the anger Louis felt, still feels, because the confusion on his face announces to the entire world that he has no idea the weight that was in his hands, has no idea that the disease he's reading about could have flared up at any point but chose to wait an extra two weeks to ruin something that had barely begun. He doesn't know that their breathtaking two weeks were two cruel weeks in disguise, enough to have a taste, to get hooked, to give reason to mourn their future, to get Louis to care but not to give enough reason for Harry to stay.

A tendon in Harry's jaw jumps the second his brain makes the connection. His eyes flit down to the cramped portion written by hand in the bottom margin and flicks back up to the words 'no cure' 'inoperable' 'no treatment' and back again, disbelief coloring his face.

Now, Louis realized, was the time to go.

He shouldn't be here at all. This was stupid stupid stupid, and-

One step towards the door and Harry's head snaps up. "Louis," a broken, confused whine carries across the room, and suddenly, Louis isn't aiming for the exit but to the man who stands up and meets him in a tight embrace.

"No, no, no, no," refusals dribble off Harry's lips and into Louis's hair before they are stroked away by Harry's reverent hands. Louis lets himself be held, needing it just as much as the boy with the curls. "We-- I thought-- so much time." Louis pushes Harry away by the hips.

"Well, we--I don't have that anymore. I don't want to make this harder for you. It's been really nice knowing you." Louis doesn't meet his eyes as his clumsy lips shape the words. Instead, he takes in the contours of his shoulders, the plane of his chest. This could be the last time after all.

The first of a lot of lasts.

Harry is still as a statue, so he plays it to his advantage and sneaks a hug. Arms lock around Louis's smaller form, holding him in place.

"Don't you dare," lips brush against his ear in a whisper.

"We're not even together," Louis murmurs into the same jacket his fingers catch against. Harry freezes for a second more and pulls back to look at the smaller boy.

"But aren't we though? This," he breathes and flaps a hand between them, "this feels like we are, and I-- I'm not fucking leaving you just because you're sick," Harry spits the word out like it's a curse, and perhaps in his mind, it is. "What kind of person do you think I am?"

A wonderful sort of person. One who deserves much more than this.

"It's not fair to you, Harry," he refutes and then, quieter, "I don't want you to get attached."

"I don't know if you've realized this, but I'm already quite attached." In another context, Harry's lips would've curled up, but the sentence falls, shaky and flat and scared. "It's not fair to either of us, but it doesn't- I'm not leaving you. Not ever."

Louis sees the panic welling up inside his almost boyfriend's eyes and can feel it pulsing against his skin where Harry holds his hand too tight, but it's not just there either, it's in his own chest too, in the shake of his own fingers, even when it's balanced with a trace of warm relief.

When they exit the coffee shop, they do so hand in hand. Shaken yet warm, they do not part, and Harry does not leave his side.

They move in together. For any other relationship, it would be too rushed, light-years too fast, but they want this and collectively decide they both deserve to live out out as much of this relationship as possible. If some cold, dark place in the back of Harry's head whispers that Louis will need someone to take care of him at the end, Harry makes no mention of it, just squeezes his partner's hand that much tighter.

Louis persuades his family to come visit for the weekend, wanting them to know how happy he was at the end of it all. He decides against telling his sisters of his condition, leaving them what he calls late Valentine's presents for his favorite girls and their last living memory of him. He does pull his mum away, however, telling her quietly that things weren't going as well they should but explaining how he didn't want to scare the young ones. Whatever strength she finds on her son's face allow her to take the news better than the circumstance dictates. She nods tearfully and hugs her son desperately for a long moment before rolling her shoulders and going to face her daughters.

It's at that moment Louis feels the depth of love and appreciation for his mother and everything she's shouldered over the years.

The van pulls out onto the street, and when he collects himself enough, he pulls out of Harry's arms and begins writing goodbye letters. He still has some time left, but he doesn't know how long he'll stay himself and can't bring himself to put it off, not when his mum's tears are so fresh in his mind.

The letters are emotional, and they're lengthy but not as emotional or lengthy as the letter he saves for last.

 _Dearest Harry,_ Louis writes, _I know you don't want be reading this letter. You don't want it to exist at all actually, but I have a story to tell you. I hope you'll find it a bit familiar, but hold on to the end, love, there's something important in there._

And so with an alternately shaky and steady hand, Louis sketches out his world before he knew of a person called Harry Edward Styles.

It was good then, at least reasonably so, in this Harry-less world. It just didn't know what it was missing.

He scrawls out their first meeting and slowly fills in the bits and pieces that Harry wouldn't know, how the day had been complete and utter shit, how Harry had walked in, and suddenly the day deserved stars and hearts encircling the number on the calendar.

The letter goes on and so does their rewritten relationship. He divulges that he wanted to know Harry the first time a smile dimpled an alabaster cheek, and he tells him that he loved him as that first bark of laughter peeled from his mouth.

He replays the conversation he had with his mum, two days before the diagnosis. He relives the evasion but eventual confession about a tall boy with pretty curls and a too sweet taste in tea and the cooing and approval that poured from the other line.

He spits out every little thought he's hidden because Louis Tomlinson may be brash and loud, but he isn't forthcoming with his feelings, not verbally at least, yet he spills them out anyways in words he didn't steal from Wikipedia as he breathes new color into the time they've shared in their little flat.

It's not for his benefit, though, even if the process is a cathartic one. It's for the last paragraph and for however many years Harry will be alive while Louis isn't.

It's there that Louis assures Harry about life, when the rest of the letter assured him of love. He doesn't just give his blessing, he urges Harry to move on and not to give up on love just because their chance was ripped from their grasp too early.

Because maybe the two aren't really soul mates. Maybe Louis is just a tale to be recounted into skin of Harry's true partner, but Louis refuses to be the climax of Harry's novel even if Harry is his happy ending. He thinks himself to be a footnote, maybe, that reads, "During this February, Harry learned to love a boy named Louis in two weeks in between sips of tea. This Louis caused flinching under cafe doorways and smiles when The Fray could be heard on the radio, but he also propelled Harry on to do the things that he was destined to do."

He would be happy with that.

They get two more weeks together, crueler than the first but infinitely more precious, before Harry wakes up in a bed that is too cold to be housing two breathing people.

It isn't fair, Harry thinks, as the first tears roll down his cheeks.

It isn't fair, Harry repeats, picking up his phone and dialing the first number on Louis's list.

It isn't fair, Harry chokes aloud, on a highway somewhere between London and Doncaster.

It isn't fair, Harry murmurs to the pile of crying girls in his arms.

It isn't fair, Harry whispers, as they lower the casket.

It isn't fair when a gentleman hands him an envelope with his name on it in dark blue ink. It isn't fair when his heart hurts as midnight script blurs before him. It still isn't fair that Harry must return an empty apartment and begin an emptier life, but he does because all the unfairness in the world could not make him deny Louis's last request.

It isn't fair, any of it, but Harry learns to make do.


End file.
